Source: The New York Times
Written By: Mallory McDuff
Published: July 26, 2019
Featured: Preparing for Death, Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, Center for End of Life Transitions
After helping her father have the homegrown funeral he planned, an environmentalist is designing her own.
“I hope to be around for a long time,” my father said, “but I’ve written my funeral plan so we’re all prepared.”
That morning, he’d cycled to the farm in Fairhope, Ala., where he volunteered in exchange for organic vegetables. My dad was 62 but could pedal faster than his four middle-aged kids. He had gathered us at our childhood home to share his goal of having a burial that relied on family and friends, not a funeral home.
After almost four decades of marriage, he was learning to live alone. Dad had lost his cycling partner when my mom was hit and killed by a teenage driver while biking to the same farm the month before. My father, a retired IBM salesman, wanted to make sure he — and we — were prepared for his death when the time came.
